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One part bowling alley, one part laser-tag arena, and one part sports bar, eSkape Entertainment Center helps guests settle scores with friendly competition before burying rivalries with a post-match toast. Dozens of high-tech bowling lanes aid players’ pursuit of turkeys with electronic score keeping, customized bumper bars, and instructional videos on how to high-five. A dimly lit laser tag course arms players with a phaser gun before sending them in pursuit of the most dangerous game. Partiers can pass birthday parties or bar mitzvahs at The Arena, a party center designed to look like a nightclub with dance floor, neon-lit bar, and sequestered booths with leopard-print seats.

In between strikes, sharpshooting lessons, or surprise parties, guests can refuel with grub from GrillWorks, eSkape's in-house sports bar and lounge, nibbling on fried cheese curds, pulled-pork sliders, or slow-roasted baby back ribs. Attendants can deliver orders directly to each lane, saving bowlers from having to tide themselves over with bites from defective pins.

On an extended lunch break, I walked from my office to the Dining Room at Kendall College. The brisk 10-minute trek in Chicago summer humidity took me past a cement factory and a Greyhound parking depot before I stood in front of a building that looked very much like my college dormitory. Inside the Dining Room, however, was a surprisingly elegant contrast to the industrial landscape surrounding it.
The restaurant is run by the college’s culinary-arts students, who are overseen by expert chefs, including Kendall alumna Beverly Kim, whose previous gigs include a stint on Top Chef and at Logan Square’s Bonsoirée. The combination of her expertise and the students’ inexperience, I had heard, would ensure us upscale food at an affordable price. The prix fixe lunch, which my friend and I had come for, would allow us to indulge in a starter, entree, and dessert, along with nonalcoholic drinks called pomados, for $22 each.
We sat close to the kitchen, with only a glass panel separating us from the action. Chefs, most in their 20s and 30s, were hard at work chopping vegetables, squeezing fresh juices, and plating dishes. Soon, their work began arriving at our table: a first course of cheese-filled squash blossoms, followed by a palate-cleansing gooseberry sorbet.
Then our entrees arrived. I ordered the goat-cheese fritters. Now, there are few things I love more than goat cheese—I’m talking about straight from the container—so this dish clearly had potential to become one of my favorites. The fritters were bursting with rich, creamy goat cheese. They came atop a caponata, with spongy eggplant and tomatoes and crisp celery and pine nuts. The last two ingredients added the perfect amount of crunch to the dish. Drizzles of summer-vegetable crema surrounded the caponata, adding just enough tartness to complement the goat-cheese filling. I opted to dip the fritters in the vegetable mélange, which created an excellent balance of savory and sweet flavors.
The fresh vegetable accents were no surprise, as the Dining Room at Kendall College is Guaranteed Green by the Green Chicago Restaurant Coalition, which means it has “achieved a markedly high level of environmental responsibility,” according to the coalition’s website. Although the server couldn’t give me specifics on my meal, he pointed to the school’s garden as playing a major role in the menu. A salad on the menu entirely comprises vegetables from the garden, and many of the vegetables used in the restaurant’s dishes are offerings fresh from the garden. In addition, the Dining Room at Kendall College has a seasonal menu, so its dishes include the garden’s freshest herbs and vegetables.
After my leisurely two-hour lunch, I stepped out of the college and into a blanket of humidity. My mini vacation was over; it was time to go back to work. Still, with my belly full of student chefs' carefully prepared food, I felt ready to face the day.

Chefs always want their food to be memorable. Sometimes that desire leads to off-the-wall flavor pairings or complicated presentations. But sometimes simplicity makes a deeper impression; just ask Brian Jupiter, executive chef at Frontier, who specializes in cooking whole animals for feasts, which he describes as “nouveau family style.” His whole-animal options range from the familiar—pig and lamb—to the exotic. “Right now we have camel, turtle, elk, rabbit, and alpaca,” Jupiter says. “Yak is coming.” Pig is the most popular, though. “We do 20 [whole pigs] a week on average,” he says. “For the Fourth [of July], several people have booked big pigs—100 pounders.”
One of Executive Chef Jupiter’s whole pigs: injected with brine, smoked, and ready for the table
Part of the fun of eating a whole pig is learning the names and tastes of its various cuts. “People grow up eating bacon and ham, but they may not know exactly where it comes from,” he says. “We tell them ‘this is the belly—you’re eating bacon.’ They are interested to learn.” Jupiter’s own favorite cut is the shoulder. “I like the juiciness of it, and it tends to shred up once it cooks. To me, it’s the most flavorful part.”
Frontier sources its pigs from Halsted Packing House, where butchers slaughter pigs onsite, and from Slagel Family Farm, where farmers carefully curate a genetic line that melds berkshire, duroc, and yorkshire breeds. Chef Jupiter prepares the pork by injecting it with a briny blend of spices, garlic, herbs, and vinegar. “We don’t rub the outside, because it won’t penetrate the skin,” he explains. Then, the whole pig gets smoked over apple, cherry, and sometimes sugar-maple wood. “Sugar maple is more seasonal,” he says. “Normally we use that for the bacon that we cure in-house.”
Some people get squeamish when Jupiter and his team lay out the smoked animal and start carving. Others get adventurous, sampling not only traditional cuts, but offal. “We carve the cheeks, the tongue, the brain … [those parts are] smoked with the animal, and we just pull them out once we start carving,” Jupiter says. When groups order whole-animal service to celebrate a birthday, Frontier makes a special recommendation for the birthday-haver. “We make them eat the eyeball,” he says.
Email emily@pioneertaverngroup.com to schedule your own whole-animal feast, or check out our calendar of upcoming pig roasts around Chicago.
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Do312 3 Year Birthday Bash at Double Door (1572 North Milwaukee Avenue) on Thursday, June 20
Do312, Chicago’s nightlife (and daylife) calendar, is celebrating its third birthday at Double Door with Red Bull cocktails and a whole pig from Frontier. The party starts at 8 p.m. Mucca Pazza, Deal’s Gone Bad, and Bully in the Hallway will play, and a GlitterGuts photo booth will document the night.
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Pork N’ Beans Pig Roast & Roots Rock at Reggies (2105 South State Street) on Sunday, June 23
Reggies is throwing a party, too: the Pork N’ Beans Pig Roast & Roots Rock event, which pairs succulent pork with tunes by White Trash Blues Revival, Kentucky Knife Fight, Left Lane Cruiser, and garage rock-blues outfit Gun.
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Serbfest at Holy Resurrection Serbian Orthodox Cathedral (5701 North Redwood Drive) from Friday, August 9, through Sunday, August 11
Spit-roasted pig and lamb is served alongside authentic dishes, such as raznjici—Serbian-style kebabs. The fest also features live entertainment, dancing, and bounce houses for children or astronauts experiencing gravity sickness.
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Taste of Romania at Little Bucharest Bistro (3661 North Elston Avenue) on Saturday, August 24
The scent of succulent roasted pork wafts through the air at Taste of Romania, an annual celebration with dance performances and live Romanian, Polish, Serbian, and Greek folk music. There’s also outdoor seating and a playground for wee ones.
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Urban Pig Roast at the Aberdeen Tap (440 North Aberdeen Street) on Saturday, September 7
Slow and low are key terms at the Urban Pig Roast, where for 12 hours chefs roast whole pigs and lambs over smoldering charcoal. The celebration, now in its 20th year, started out as a house party on the Fourth of July in 1992. This time around, it’s being held at the Aberdeen Tap, a pub whose large sidewalk patio offers views of Chicago’s skyline.
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Festiv-Ale at Carmichael's Chicago Steak House (1052 West Monroe Street) on Friday, September 20
General admission to Festiv-Ale gets you craft-beer tastings and appetizers from local restaurants, but if you opt for the $100 VIP tickets, you also get access to a whole-pig roast from Frontier and a special beer from Solemn Oath Brewery. The event also features live music and a silent auction and raffles to benefit the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. The VIP reception starts at 6 p.m.
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Suckling Pig Roast at Carnivale (702 West Fulton Market) every Thursday throughout the summer
Chef Rodolfo Cuadros roasts suckling pigs and carves the flesh for mouthwatering tacos. The tacos are just $3 each, but the chef has been known to hand them out to patrons buying drinks. Stick around for a complimentary bachata dance class from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m.

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